The Purpose-Driven Life

- A Review of the Book From a Lutheran Perspective

Pastor
Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose-Driven Life, has sold
millions of copies worldwide, and seems to be “sweeping” through
the visible church, being used by many different denominations.1,
2
According to the book’s jacket cover, it is “a groundbreaking manifesto on
the meaning of life.”

We did
the 40 Days of Purpose Campaign in our church. Before the forty days
started, people seemed excited about the opportunity to read the book and
meet in small groups to discuss it.

As we
went through the forty days, there were times during our group meetings when
I pointed out statements in the book that weren’t in agreement with
Scripture, and other times when I kept quiet. I didn’t want to
dominate the discussion, or spoil it for others in the group. Yet I
cannot remain silent when the truth of the Gospel is being distorted.
It is our duty as Christians to “contend for the faith that was once for all
entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3b). Paul tells the Corinthians that
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the
knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to
Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5), and Paul advises Timothy to “Watch your life and
doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both
yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16).

The
Purpose-Driven Life finished
2004 as the number one self-help book, and is currently the nation’s number
one best-selling book of any kind.3 Why would a “Christian”
book become a best-seller? People normally flee from the cross of
Christ, not flock to it. Part of it may be due to the spiffy packaging—it
looks nice. Part of it may be because you don’t necessarily know from
the cover that it is a “Christian” book. Part of it is due to the
large amount of free press that it has received. Also, many people
are searching for the meaning of life. Now I’ll quit speculating.
Part of it is because Rick Warren has “sanitized” God’s Word; he has cleaned
up the parts that might offend anyone (the part about how you are by nature
a sinner and deserve eternal damnation, for instance) and “augmented” other
parts to make you look wonderful. What’s there not to like! (2
Timothy 4:3)

You might
wonder how a book that contains over 1,000 Bible references could possibly
sanitize, augment, or otherwise manipulate. The easiest way is to use
a poor Bible translation.4 If that doesn’t work to support
your position, you can take a verse out of context to make it appear to mean
something it actually doesn’t mean.5 You can also mix and
match verses6 or just use part of a verse, preferably without
noting it in the footnote,7 all of which are similar to taking
the verse out of context. If your position is weak, you can use a
single verse over and over by using a different translation each time.8
This technique works well in a book like The Purpose-Driven Life
where you have to look in the back of the book to discover what verse is
being quoted. Another way is to add human wisdom that isn’t contained in
the Bible, either by using your own words9 or by quoting others.10
All of the above can be found in The Purpose-Driven Life.

Part of
Rick Warren’s audience is non-Christians. As such, there should be in
the book a clear message of both Law and Gospel so that those who are
unbelievers might come to know Jesus as their Savior, but there is no such
clear message. While the Gospel can be found in the book, its message
may be lost due to a focus on us and a lack of the Law. Some would
argue that since the purpose of the book is to help people see God’s
purposes for their lives, it doesn’t need to present Law and Gospel.
But without Law and Gospel there can be no conversion (the moment we believe
Jesus is our Savior and are thus saved), and without conversion, unbelievers
won’t understand God’s purposes or their purposes. As it says in
Romans 8:6-7:

The mind of sinful man
is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the
sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it
do so.11

Lest I
make the same error, I present both the Law and the Gospel. My purpose
is two-fold, first to proclaim the Gospel clearly to both believer and
unbeliever, and secondly to use it as a basis for a comparison of ideas
presented in the book.

Law and Gospel

First the
Law. We are sinners from conception (Psalm 51:5). When God
created Adam and Eve they were sinless, but because they sinned against God
by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, all of us have
inherited their guilt and corruption. No matter what we do, our sinful
nature shows through. No matter how hard I try, I am impatient with my
kids, I don’t appreciate my wife as much as I should, and I complain when I
have to go to work. Our sin alienates us from God. On the other
hand, God is holy, perfect, without sin. God hates sin.
He can not and will not tolerate sin (Psalm 5:4-5). God’s punishment
for sin is death (Romans 6:23). Our sin leaves us with a terrible mess
that we can’t overcome, but as St. Paul says: “The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:56-57). This leads us to
the Gospel.

The
Gospel is the Good News about what Jesus did for us. Jesus, who
is Mighty God (Isaiah 9:6) and creator of all things (Colossians 1:16), humbled
himself by becoming a man:

[Jesus], Who, being in
very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!Philippians 2:6-8

Jesus became a man so
that He could be punished for our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). He came to do what
we cannot, to keep the Law for us, and suffer a crucifixion that was
rightfully ours. “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was
condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was
justification that brings life for all men” (Romans 5:18).
Justification is the gracious act of God in which He, for Christ’s sake,
rescinds the believer’s sentence of condemnation passed because of their
sin, and finds them innocent by ascribing to them Christ’s righteousness.
Romans 4:25 says “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised
to life for our justification.”

It is by
faith in Jesus’ life-giving death and resurrection that we are justified,
and not by faith itself, but by trusting in the promises of the Gospel that
faith apprehends. We are no longer alienated from God. Jesus
blood shed on the cross washes away the sins of believers; we are righteous
because Jesus’ righteousness is credited to us. God now sees us as
sinless and Holy, even though we are still sinners. Since we are now
holy in God’s sight, we have eternal life (John 5:24) and look
forward to spending eternity with God in Heaven.

Therefore, since we
have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ,
Romans
5:1

So all we
need to do is “receive and believe,”12
right? Wrong. While we do “receive” in the sense that at
conversion the Holy Spirit enters into our heart, we cannot accept or come
to God on our own, either wholly or in part:

But a natural man does
not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him;
and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.1
Corinthians 2:14

As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.Romans
3:10-11

It is only through the
Holy Spirit that conversion occurs. We can’t do any of it on our own;
before our conversion we are enemies of God (Romans 5:10). Through the
Law the Holy Spirit works in us a knowledge of our sin, a fear of God’s
punishment, and a desire for forgiveness (Galatians 3:24), and through the
Gospel He works in us saving faith. Thus, our conversion and
justification are accomplished through no effort, work, or merit on our
part, but strictly by God’s grace:

For it is by grace you
have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift
of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.Ephesians 2:8-9

he saved us, not
because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved
us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he
poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having
been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of
eternal life.Titus
3:5-7

We don’t make a
decision for Christ. We don’t choose Him, he chooses us:

You did not choose me,
but I chose you...John
15:16a

For he chose us in him
before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In
love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in
accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace,
which he has freely given us in the One he loves.Ephesians 1:4-6

The Holy
Spirit does not convert us by “magic,” He comes to us through the “means
of grace” to work faith in our hearts and preserve it. The
means of grace are His Word and the Sacraments—Baptism and The Lord’s
Supper. While we are still unbelievers, our merciful God comes to us,
and through the preaching of His Word the Holy Spirit creates faith in our
heart, moving our intellect, will, and heart to trust in God and His saving
work in Christ Jesus.

I cannot
overemphasize the importance of God’s Word in the conversion of a sinner.
It is only through the spoken or written Word, or the Word and water
in Baptism (which I will discuss later), that conversion can occur.

Consequently, faith
comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of
Christ.Romans
10:17

I am not ashamed of
the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who
believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.Romans
1:16

When we
are converted, we become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), we are reborn
(1 Peter 1:23).
We are free to praise and glorify God because of His gracious and loving
plan of salvation that has been revealed to us through the Gospel, and we
are free to tell others about Him, and we are free to do good works.
The weight of the Law is lifted from us:

When you were dead in
your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you
alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written
code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to
us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.Colossians 2:13-14

We are
now justified by faith. Martin Luther speaks of faith:

Faith, however, is a
divine work in us. It changes us and makes us to be born anew of God
(John 1); it kills the old Adam and makes altogether different men, in heart
and spirit and mind and powers, and it brings with it the Holy Ghost.
Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith; and so it is
impossible for it not to do good works incessantly. It does not ask
whether there are good works to do, but before the question rises; it has
already done them, and is always at the doing of them.13

Now that
we are a new creation, our attitude changes. We seek God’s will for
our lives. We follow the command of Romans 12:2:

Do not conform any
longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his
good, pleasing and perfect will.

The
process whereby our attitude is changed and we become more Christ-like is
called sanctification, and it continues throughout our life. We are
sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the means of grace.

May God himself, the
God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul
and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.1Thessalonians 5:23

Sanctification, as the above verse illustrates, is primarily the work of the
Holy Spirit, and it is always the Holy Spirit who takes the lead to effect
our sanctification ( Philippians 1:6). Unlike conversion, we do, in weakness,
cooperate with the Holy Spirit in our sanctification as He leads us in the
doing of good works and becoming more Christ-like (Philippians 2:12-13), but only
insofar as we remain in faith through God’s grace (Galatians 3:3).

Conversion and sanctification are not a process where our old sinful nature
is reformed; we are reborn. The old structure isn’t renovated, the old
one is torn down and a new one replaces it; we become a new creation.

For if you live
according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put
to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,Romans
8:13

Those who belong to
Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.Galatians 5:24

In
summary, the Holy Spirit uses the Law to make us aware of our sin and fear
God’s wrath. But the Law cannot save, it can only convict. The
Holy Spirit then acts through the means of grace to convert us,
justify us, and sanctify us.

And while
as Christians we are no longer under the Law (Romans 7:6), the Law is still
useful to us. It is used as a curb (Romans 2:14-15), a mirror (Romans
3:20),
and a guide (Psalm 119:9). As a curb, to keep our still-present sinful
nature in check, as a mirror, to remind us that we are still sinners in need
of a Savior, and as a guide in daily life, pointing the way to good works,
which we do joyfully and willingly without coercion.14 But
it is still the Gospel that motivates and produces spiritually good works,
never the Law.

Now that
we’ve reviewed Law and Gospel, let’s get back to the book.

Rick
Warren states: "Butfor unity's sake we must never let
differences divide us."15 His statement is not in
keeping with Scripture. Paul writes to Titus while speaking about
pastors: “He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has
been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute
those who oppose it" (Titus 1:9). While we should seek unity within
the church, we must not compromise doctrine to do so. When doctrinal
differences are ignored, the truth is ignored as well. Pastor Warren’s
book The Purpose-Driven Life ignores sound doctrine by turning our
focus from Christ and the cross inward towards ourselves, by minimizing the
Law, by distorting the image of both ourselves and God, and by discounting
the means of grace. I take no pleasure in criticizing Pastor
Warren, but when God’s word is abused, that error must be exposed and
refuted. “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand
at all" (Isaiah 7:9b).

Finding Yourself, Your True Self

The
Purpose-Driven Life is touted as “a 40-day spiritual journey.”16 Part of that journey includes finding out who you are, a popular
catchphrase in our society. Rick Warren (RW) provides the following
quotes from a paraphrased Bible called The Message to help lead the
way:

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are
living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up,
he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the
overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
[Emphasis added]Ephesians 1:11-12, pages 5 & 20

One thing that these
two quotes have in common is that they have nothing to do with “your
true self.” By reviewing these verses in a more literal,
word-for-word translation rather than a paraphrase, the true meaning of each
verse can be discovered:17

In him [Jesus] we were
also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him [God the
Father] who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the
praise of his glory.Ephesians 1:11-12

For whoever wants to
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me [Jesus] will
find it.Matthew
16:25

This
seems like a rocky start for our journey of self-discovery. These
verses aren’t saying anything about my “true self.” I
don’t find out who I am in Ephesians 1, the focus of the verse is God’s plan
of salvation for me. It’s God demonstrating his grace through Jesus,
according to the purpose of His will.

The
Message has me finding my “true self” in Matthew 16:25,
but the NIV translation has me losing my life for Christ—that’s a
pretty big difference. Which translation is correct? To put it
into context, we can look at verse 24 in the NIV: “Then Jesus said to
his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me.’ ” Neither verse says anything about your
“true self.” The thought behind “taking up your cross”
and losing your life for Jesus is that you must leave your old life behind
(Luke 14:26-27),
confess Jesus as Lord, and be willing to suffer and sacrifice for Jesus and
for the sake of the Gospel, a task that, like the rich young man (Matthew
19:16-22),
many people will not do. That’s because our real “true self,”
the one born sinful, wants nothing to do with losing his or her life.
Pastor Warren somehow seems to think that if we find our true self, it will
jump at the chance to do God’s bidding. As we saw in the discussion on
Law earlier, our true self is our sinful nature which we will never master
while on earth (though it will be gone forever once we reach Heaven, by
God’s grace and power); Jeremiah 17:9 says our heart is “deceitful above all
things and beyond cure.” We shouldn’t want to find our true self, we
should want to crucify it (Romans 6:6). What is also made clear in
verse 26 is that the life you find is not your own life, but eternal
life: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet
forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Did you
notice in the above two verses that in The Message verses, the
emphasis is on you, while in the NIV verses the emphasis is on God?
The Message verses are much more man-centered, the NIV verses are
Christ-centered. This use of paraphrased translations and contextual
errors to change the Bible from a Christ-centered message to a man-centered
message is a continual thread running throughout The Purpose-Driven Life. It is no accident. God does not appreciate it when
someone changes His Word. If you change God’s Word you are pretending
to be God. God’s response can be found in Proverbs 30:6:

Do not add to his
words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.

God does
not want us to seek our “true self,” he wants us to seek Him.
If you are spending time narcissistically gazing at your reflection in a
pool, that’s less time that you can use to seek and serve Him. You
cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Whenever you turn from a
Christ-centered theology to a man-centered theology, you are debasing what
Christ did for you on the cross. When you turn from the cross, you
become like the Israelites. Though God was directly before them,
leading them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, they
still turned away to worship idols they themselves made. When we turn
away from Jesus and the cross, we make an idol of ourselves.

Augmentation

Continuing along on our “road trip,” The Purpose-Driven Life often “augments” our self-image by
making us appear to have merit in and of ourselves, a disturbing doctrine
not found in the Bible. Paraphrased versions of the Bible are used to
change the picture of ourselves:

God's wisdom...goes deep into the interior
of his purposes....It's not the latest message, but more like the
oldestwhat God determined asthe way to bring out his best in us.
[emphasis added]1
Corinthians 2:7, The Message, page 20

God decided to
give us life through the word of truth sowe might be the most important of all the things he made.
[emphasis added]James
1:18, New Century Version, page 24, 186

Compare the same
verses in the NIV:

No, we speak of God's
secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for
our glory before time began. [emphasis added]1
Corinthians 2:7

He chose to give us
birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits
of all he created. [emphasis added]James
1:18

In the
above comparisons, we can see that God isn’t bringing out the best in us or
making us the most important; He’s showing us His grace and loving-kindness.
He isn’t responding to us because we are meritorious, but because He loves
us. God reveals His secret wisdom to us, His divine plan of salvation,
so that through faith in Christ we will ultimately share in His eternal
glory in Heaven (Romans 8:17). We are reborn so that we can be living
sacrifices (firstfruits) for Him. In the paraphrased verses, the focus
is on us; in the accurate translation, the focus is on Christ.18

On page
69 RW says:

God became so
disgusted with the human race that he considered wiping it out. But
there was one man who made God smile. The Bible says, “Noah was a
pleasure to the Lord.”
[Genesis 6:8, Living Bible] God said, “This guy brings me
pleasure. He makes me smile. I’ll start over with his family.”
Because Noah brought pleasure to God, you and I are alive today.

The
New International Version (NIV) translation does not say that
“Noah was a pleasure to the Lord,” but that “Noah found favor in the
eyes of the LORD.” Another word for “favor” is “grace.” In the
NIV verse, Noah doesn’t make God smile, Noah is shown grace by God. We
are not alive today because Noah brought pleasure to God, we are alive today
because God showed grace to Noah.

Sanitization

One way
RW “sanitizes” our image of ourselves is by avoiding Scripture that shows us
our real“true self,” the ugly sinner. An example
of this sanitization occurs in Day 9, “What Makes God Smile?,” on page 76:

God is looking for
people like Noah in the twenty-first century—people willing to live for the
pleasure of God. The Bible says, “The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind to see if there are any who are wise, who want to please God.”[Psalm
14:2, Living Bible]

The problem is that RW
omits what it is the Lord sees when He looks down from Heaven on all
mankind. Here is verse 2, accompanied by verse 3 from the NIV:

The LORD looks down
from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any
who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become
corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

Verse three puts verse
two into context. We find out the truth about ourselves (at least the
sinful nature side), we don’t want to seek God.

Another
way the message is “sanitized” is by omitting the Law (at least the 2nd
use of the Law—that shows us our sin). The Bible is a lot easier to
read if we aren’t confronted by the Law—the Law makes us too uncomfortable.
God’s wrath isn’t a popular subject; it doesn’t sell well. While RW
does mention sin, repentance, and Hell, they aren’t frequent topics.
Phrases like “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29), “jealous God”
(Deuteronomy 4:24), “eternal fire” (Matthew 18:8), and “fiery lake of
burning sulfur” (Revelation 21:8) won’t show up on your Purpose-Driven
Life word search. Through the usual “sleight of
hand” by manipulation of various translations and omission and juggling of
verses along with footnote errors, the fear of God,19 sin,20
and death21 are often “lost in translation.” As an example,
he quotes the first half of John 3:36 from The Message on page 58,
"Whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete
and forever!,” but he skips the last half of the verse. Here
is the whole verse from the NIV:

Whoever believes in
the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for
God's wrath remains on him."

We’ve now
traveled a long way down the road on our spiritual journey, and we are at an
impasse. The sign reads “NO OUTLET.” We’ve paid for a trip to
discover who we really are, but instead have discovered who we really
aren’t.

By
augmenting and sanitizing, we are left with a picture of ourselves that
looks more like a reflected image from the wavy mirror in the fun house at
the carnival. And our picture of God is becoming distorted as well.

When you
read “He thought of you first,”22“your life has
profound meaning!,”23“he [God] will enjoy us,”24“The glory of God is a human being fully alive!,”25“It
proves your worth,”26“you bring pleasure to God,”27“He longs for you to know him and spend time with him,”28“God wants to be your best friend,”29“God brings
the best out of you,”30"I want you to think about
how all this makes you more significant,”31“the
real you, the glorious you,”32 you start believing,
whether you are a believer or an unbeliever, that you are worthy and
self-important. And you start believing that God is a jovial old St.
Nick type of guy with a jolly laugh who has you sit on his knee and doesn’t
mind a little sin.33 “Pride goes before destruction, a
haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

Not even
Rick Warren can sanitize our real “true self.” “ ‘Although you
wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your
guilt is still before me,’ declares the Sovereign LORD” (Jeremiah 2:22).
“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I
have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans
7:18).

When our
attention is diverted from the accurate reflection of ourselves as sinners,
and the mirror is then totally removed by omitting God’s Law, we are well
around the bend and speeding towards the sign that reads “DANGER.” At
this point the believer’s seatbelt has come undone, and the unbeliever is
being pulled outside the safe confines of the bus and dangling by the door
as the vehicle rounds the curve. “For in his own eyes he flatters
himself too much to detect or hate his sin” (Psalm 36:2).

You
cannot “cut corners” with Law and Gospel. The Good News (the
Gospel) only becomes good news after we have first heard the Law, become
sorrowful and repent. The severity of the Law should never be
minimized or marginalized. Any effort to make Christianity more
palatable by downplaying the Law and making the sinner look good is a road
map for disaster, no matter how well-intentioned. We cannot allow our
attention to be shifted from the cross onto ourselves.

You’ve been robbed!

As I
discussed earlier, the Holy Spirit only converts and sanctifies us through
means, called the means of grace, which are the Scriptures and
the Sacraments. A Sacrament is defined as a sacred act instituted by
God in which God Himself joins His Word of promise in the
Gospel to a visible element, graciously offering us the forgiveness of sins
earned for us by Christ on the cross.34

In
Baptism, our sins are forgiven (Acts 2:38, 22:16), we are rescued from death, and
thus salvation is given (Mark 16:16, Colossians 2:11-13), because of Jesus’ death and
resurrection. The Holy Spirit works forgiveness and grants and
strengthens faith by water connected to the Word of God. Baptism is
not a one-time thing. While we are only Baptized once, we receive the
benefits of the promises God offers in our Baptism each day. Through
Baptism our old sinful nature is daily drowned through contrition and
repentance, and we are again renewed (Titus 3:5, 2 Corinthians 4:16), our sins having been
washed away to serve God in joy and righteousness.

In
Communion, Jesus comes to us through His actual body and blood “given for
you” for the forgiveness of your sins (Matthew 26:26-28), connected chiefly with
the Word and also the bread and wine. In that body and blood we
receive all the merit and benefits that Jesus procured for us when He was
sacrificed in our place through His crucifixion.

In The
Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren describes Baptism as nothing more than
a symbol, a “visible reminder.”35 Communion is
mentioned only in passing, being lumped together with Baptism and other
parts of a church service.36 RW states that every part of a
church service is an act of worship,37 and he defines worship as
“bringing pleasure to God.”38 By calling the
Sacraments nothing more than “bringing pleasure to God” he turns the
Sacraments from an act of God in which God comes to us into an act of our
own in which we offer something to God; he is basically turning the
Sacraments on their heads, turning the Sacraments into a work.
He is robbing you of the Gospel promise offered in Baptism and Communion and
rejecting what Christ has done for us.

In the
Sacraments God comes to us, for us. Once we have been
converted, all our sins are forgiven. God sees us as holy. Yet
we are still sinners. Our battle with our sinful nature continues.
In the Sacraments God comes to us through Word, water, bread/body,
and wine/blood and offers us forgiveness of sins to ease our troubled
hearts. God comes to us through elements that we can hear, see,
feel, taste, and smell. God comes to us to forgive us, save us,
strengthen us, comfort us, renew us, unite us. In our lives we are
often worn out, frustrated, embattled, stricken by grief, afraid, ashamed of
our own behavior and sin but yet too selfish to admit it or even recognize
it. It is then that we most need to repent and receive the
reconciliation offered by the Sacraments, the reconciliation that again
makes us right with God and renews our spirit. When Rick Warren says
that “Worship is not for your benefit,”39 he is wrong.
He is missing an abundant outpouring of God’s grace through the Word,
Baptism, and Communion that is entirely for our benefit

The
benefits of the means of grace, whether by the Word, Baptism, or
Communion, can only be apprehended through faith. If you believe that
Baptism and Communion are only symbols, you turn them into a man-made work
and forfeit the forgiveness and salvation which they offer. Don’t let
Rick Warren or anyone else rob you of any of the free grace offered through
Jesus Christ our Lord.

The First Question

RW
“surmises” on page 34 that there are two crucial questions that God will
ask us before we enter eternity. His two questions are purely
hypothetical. The Bible does not explain literally everything that
will take place on the day of judgment. Whether there will be
questions, or what they might be, I leave to God to decide.40
I discuss RW’s two questions not to lend credence to them, but to explore
how they influence his “life metaphor.”41 Let’s take
a moment to discuss each of these two “crucial” questions.

The first
question that God will ask us before we enter eternity, according to Rick
Warren, is “What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ?”
He states that “The first question will determine where you spend
eternity.” I find the question to be confusing; I’m not sure what
it’s really asking. That’s pretty scary when you have to answer a
question that determines whether you are headed for Heaven or Hell and you
don’t understand the question. What does he mean by “What did
you do with my Son?” [Emphasis added]

The
proper answer, according to RW is that you accept what Jesus did for you and
love and trust him. I find the answer to be a bit “enigmatic” as well;
it’s not a very definitive answer. What does “what Jesus did for
you” mean?

There is
no need for confusion; the Bible clearly delineates the basis for our
salvation. A good verse to use is Romans 10:9:

That if you confess
with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will be saved.

It’s clear, it’s
concise, it’s the Gospel!

Note that
our eternal disposition is based on one thing and one thing only, faith.

To
digress briefly, RW suggests on page 58 that you say this prayer to procure
your salvation: “Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you.”
Prayer is not a means of grace. You cannot be saved by a
work you perform, including prayer. If you mean when you are praying
his prayer “I believe that you are my Savior," then you have already been
saved, because you have faith!

God will
not answer the prayer of an unbeliever. It is only through faith in
Jesus Christ that we can approach God (Ephesians 3:12, John 14:6). By suggesting that
an unbeliever pray for their salvation, RW actually turns the unbeliever
away from the cross instead of towards it.

The Second Question

The
context in which RW asks both hypothetical questions is Romans 14:10b and
12, quoted by him from the New Living Translation:

Remember, each of
us will stand personally before the judgment seat of God... Yes, each of us
will have to give a personal account to God.42

The
second question that God will ask us before we enter eternity, according to
Rick Warren, is “ ‘What did you do with what I gave you?’
What did you do with your life—all the gifts, talents, opportunities,
energy, relationships, and resources God gave you? Did you spend them
on yourself, or did you use them for the purposes God made you for?”43
The answers to these questions allegedly determine “what you do in
eternity.” His second question underlies the continuous topical
drumbeat of reward found throughout the book.44

RW
asserts that if you used what God gave you for the purposes for which God
made you, you will be “reassigned to do work that we will enjoy doing,”45“you will receive a promotion and be given greater responsibility
in eternity,”46 and you will be “reassigned positions of
service.”47 When we stand before God’s throne on the last
day and see Him in all His glory, will our personal account to God be used
to determine what we do in eternity, what our magnitude of reward
will be? In a word, no.

On page
232 RW states:

The Bible says, “Each
of us will have to give a personal account to God.” Think about
the implications of that. One day God will compare how much time and
energy we spent on ourselves
compared with what we invested in serving others.48

If his statement were
correct, we would all be in deep trouble. As Psalm 130:3 says, “If
you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” No time
will be spent investigating the bad things we have done and comparing them
to the good. Jesus long ago wiped away our sin by His righteousness,

"I, even I, am he who
blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no
more.Isaiah
43:25

and cast them into the
sea,

You will again have
compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our
iniquities into the depths of the sea.Micah
7:19

If the second
question, “What did you do with what I gave you?” were asked,
the good works we have done would be used as evidence of our faith, not to
gain us a better “seat” in Heaven. There will be degrees of glory in
Heaven, but those rewards will be based on Christ’s merit, not our
own. The good works that we do are not credited to us as
righteousness, they were prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

The only
Bible passage RW uses to develop his concept of being reassigned in Heaven
to do work that we will enjoy doing is the parable of the talents in Matthew
25:14-30.49 This “reassignment” he describes seems
like a meager description of Heaven in light of 1 Corinthians 2:9,

However, as it is
written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God
has prepared for those who love him"—

and not in keeping
with overall Scripture, which talks about an other-than-salvation reward but
only hints at what it will actually be.

In the
parable of the talents, each servant is given talents (a
monetary unit) to manage “according to his ability.”50 One servant is
given five talents, one two talents, and the other one talent. The
talents represent the abilities and spiritual gifts that God graciously
bestows on each of us. While the two faithful servants each doubled
their master’s money, they had only done what was expected of them.
Since they were servants, the only reward they deserved was their hourly
wage. Their master surpassed their expectation in the pay they
received, rewarding each of them in exactly the same way, though one’s net
profit was greater than the other’s. Their master is a picture of
Christ. When we use the gifts God gives us, the good things we do are
evidence of our faith, fruits of the spirit, not meritorious works on our
part that deserve special recognition, yet the Heavenly glory we will
receive is beyond our comprehension.

On page
45, RW says of the servant’s master: “When he returns, he evaluates
each servant’s responsibility and rewards them accordingly.” The
master didn’t reward them accordingly, he showed them his bounteous grace;
what he gave them greatly exceeded what they deserved. RW goes on to
say: “At the end of your life on earth you will be evaluated and
rewarded according to how well you handled what God entrusted to you.
That means everything you do, even simple daily chores, has eternal
implications.” While it may be unintentional, what many people
will conclude from RW’s reward concept is that what they do will
directly influence their place in Heaven—cause and effect. The actions
I take will merit me a higher “rank,” so the harder I work the better off
I’ll be. Other quotes from The Purpose-Driven Life
reveal similar implications:

...but for
Christians it [not living a life
of service] will mean a loss of eternal rewards.53

These are seductive
thoughts. They are alluring. Satan loves to draw us away from
Christ by enticing us with something that seems reasonable or appears
better. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it
leads to death" (Proverbs 14:12). Our attention is being drawn from Christ and
what he has done for us to ourselves and what we can do. This is a
message all sinners love to hear. My sinful nature wants to be in
control; I don’t want to relinquish control of my life or acknowledge God’s
Lordship. When Rick Warren makes these kinds of statements he is
walking a tightrope that I refuse to get on.

On page
232 RW states that if a Christian does not live a life of service, he or she
will lose eternal rewards. He says “rewards,” not reward.
This means I should expect that some action or actions on my part will
merit some reward, more actions, another reward—this is not true whether
it relates to justification, sanctification, or Heavenly reward. This
type of thought falls under the definition of works-righteousness—I am made
righteous by what I do; a clear rejection of what Jesus has done for
me. If you believe your actions gain greater righteousness or merit or
reward, you put yourself back under the law, which only leads to death.

What then shall we
say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it,
a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of
righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it
not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling
stone." As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men
to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame."Romans
9:30-33

Therefore no one will
be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the
law we become conscious of sin.Romans
3:20

But when the kindness
and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous
things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the
washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us
generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified
by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.Titus
3:4-7

The
second question may lead us down a road we don’t want to transit. If
we do good works to seek our own reward, our good works stop becoming good
works. If we get wrapped up in rewards, we can lose sight of the real
goal, which is our salvation:

I press on toward the
goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ
Jesus.Philippians 3:14

Rather than seek
rewards based on your own actions, seek humility. Jesus said:

So you also, when you
have done everything you were told to do, should say, `We are unworthy
servants; we have only done our duty.'"Luke
17:10

Does the
answer to the second question then relate to what we will do in
eternity, how greatly we will be rewarded, or does it provide evidence of
our faith, and thus answer the first question? The riddle of RW’s
second hypothetical question can be unequivocally solved using God’s Word as
found in Romans 2:6-7:

God "will give to each
person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in
doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

Praise be
to God!

For Jesus Sake

No one
could argue that writing a book that helps you fulfill God’s purposes for
your life is anything other than a good idea. RW does make some good
points in The Purpose-Driven Life. He attempts to make the book
appealing to a wide audience, which is good, but compromises the Gospel
message by doing so, which is bad.

The
Gospel message is compromised by minimizing the law. Without the law,
no unbeliever will recognize they need a Savior.

The
Gospel message is compromised by rejecting the forgiveness of sins found in
the sacraments.

The
Gospel message is compromised by human wisdom rather than God’s wisdom.

The
Gospel message is compromised by emphasizing endless lists of what I can do,
rather than what Christ did.

The
Gospel message is compromised by focusing on me.

The
phrase “for Jesus sake” isn’t used in The Purpose-Driven Life, nor is the concept emphasized
nearly as much as it should be. A paraphrase of “for Jesus sake” could
be “because of what Jesus did for me.” An exposition of “because of
what Jesus did for me” could be “because Jesus carried my sins to the cross
while I was still His enemy, God sees me as holy and promises me eternal
life, even though I deserve His wrath.” Many of the statements RW
makes in The Purpose-Driven Life can only be rightfully made by putting the words “for Jesus
sake” after them:

“Your life is worth
taking the time to think about it”for Jesus sake.54

“You are a child of
God, and you bring pleasure to God like nothing else he has ever created”for Jesus sake.55

“He loves you as if
you were the only person on earth”for Jesus sake.56

“When we worship, God looks past our words to see the attitude of our
hearts”for Jesussake.57

“The secret of
endurance is to remember that your pain is temporary but your reward will be
eternal”for Jesus sake.58

“World-class
Christians are the only fully alive people on the planet”for Jesus sake.61,
62

Without “for Jesus
sake,” I put my trust in myself (Proverbs 28:26).

Pastor
Warren says my real problem is “a lack of focus and purpose,"63
something I should be able to work on and correct. My real problem is that I
am a sinner. Fortunately, someone came to solve my problem, and that
is where my focus lies:

Let us fix our eyes on
Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him
endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God.Hebrews
12:2

Pastor
Warren says "Hope comes from having a purpose."64
My hope comes from my Redeemer and the firm conviction I have that on the
last day I will be resurrected to eternal life; I myself will see Jesus with
my own eyes (Job 19:25-27):

Paul, an apostle of
Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,1
Timothy 1:1

Pastor
Warren states "There are many 'good' things you can do with your life,
but God's purposes are the five essentials you must do."65
The people asked Jesus what they must do:

Then they asked him,
“What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of
God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”John
6:28-29

While we do the
believing, it is God’s work, through the Holy Spirit and His means of
grace to convert us and sanctify us in saving faith through Christ Jesus
our Lord. The words of John 6:28-29 are also reflected in those of 1
John 3:23:

And this is his
[God’s] command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to
love one another as he commanded us.

It is only through
saving faith in Jesus that we can accomplish God’s purposes for our lives.
Without faith in Jesus, our firm foundation, no work is a good work, no
purpose a fruitful one. Jesus truly is the way, the truth, and the
life (John 14:6). Our focus must steadfastly remain on Him and the
work He did on the cross rather than on ourselves. Then our purposes
will flow forth like streams of living water with no forethought on our own
part.

In my own
“spiritual journey” to try and become more Christ-like and accomplish God’s
purposes in my life I find I often fail. At the end of the forty day
“road trip,” I am back where I started, at the foot of the cross. The
more I notice my failure, the more I am confronted by my sin and the Law.
It is then that I turn back to the cross and the Gospel, where my faith is
strengthened as I seek forgiveness, hope and renewal. On my journey, I
haven’t really noticed that I’ve become more Christ-like, instead I become
more and more aware of the fact that I am a sinner, and with ever increasing
understanding and joy I appreciate what it was that Christ did for me when
He hung from that cross in agony and proclaimed to the world “It is
finished" (John 19:30). For Jesus sake!

1. For
clarity, all quotations from The Purpose-Driven Life are in bold. Quotations
from The
Purpose-Driven Life containing italics are those of Pastor Rick Warren
unless otherwise noted. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).

2. The
Purpose-Driven Life has sold
22.8 million copies in three different languages, according to a USA
Today article on 3-16-05.

4. An
example is Colossians 3:4 from The Message translation on page 263:
"When Christ ... shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the
real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity."
Compare with the NIV translation: “When Christ, who is your life,
appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” In The
Message, you are glorious; in the NIV, you are with Him in glory.
The Message translation tends to glorify man at the expense of God’s
grace.

5. In Day
31, one of the SHAPE chapters, a concept that has little Biblical support,
RW discusses “abilities.” He quotes Romans 12:6a on page 242, 1
Corinthians 12:6 on page 243, and 1 Peter 4:10 on page 244 to support his
“abilities” discussion, but none of the three verses refers to
“abilities;” in each case the verse refers to spiritual gifts.

6. On page 48 RW references a quote of Philippians 3:19-20. Without
noting it, he actually quotes only verses 19b-20a, thus “sanitizing” by
avoiding the mention of “eternal destruction” and a picture of sinful human
nature.

7. An example is his use of Exodus 34:14 out of the New Living Translation
on the bottom of page 86. He omits the first half of the verse
without noting it, thereby changing the context, and uses a questionable
paraphrase, changing God from a “jealous” God who forbids you to worship
other gods, to a “close friend” who is “passionate about his
relationship with you.” Compare the verse with a literal
translation Bible.

8. In Day 32, one of the SHAPE chapters, a concept that has little Biblical
support, RW uses Galatians 6:4 three times from three different
translations, and 2 Corinthians 10:12 two times out of two different
translations.

9. An example: In promulgating the benefits of purpose-driven living on
page 30 Rick Warren states "The greatest tragedy is not death, but life
without purpose." The greatest tragedy is the sin of unbelief,
which leads to damnation. It is a tragedy because salvation is freely
offered to all people, having already been paid for by Jesus on the cross.

10. An example: In Rick
Warren’s discussion on bringing glory to God on
page 55, he quotes St. Irenaeus, “The glory of God is a human being fully
alive!,” which glorifies humans. There is no comparison between
God and man.

17. I have chosen to use the New International Version translation (NIV)
in my own Bible quotations. While it is not the most literal
word-for-word translation available, it is slightly more readable than some
other translations, while still providing a reasonably close rendering of
the original text. I encourage you to compare quotations found in the
book and in this paper with a more literal translation, such as the New
American Standard Bible (NASB), the Revised Standard Version
(RSV), or New King James Version (NKJV) to verify the meaning of the
text.

18.
The “word of truth” in James 1:18 is the Gospel, which points us to Jesus.

33.
RickWarren states on page 92 that
“God doesn’t expect you to be perfect... .” As discussed in the
Law and Gospel section, God will not tolerate sin. He does
expect you to be perfect. If you are a believer, you are justified by
faith, and God sees you as perfect.

50.
In the parable, the Greek word used for “servant” actually means “slave.”
It could indicate an involuntary servitude, what we would think of as a
slave, or a voluntary servitude, what we would think of as a salaried
servant. If it’s actual meaning is that of a true slave, the
illustration of the master’s grace would be even stronger, because a slave
would deserve nothing.